11 ms·

I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk

• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• johnhamlin 7mo ago
  Labeling a company that refused to comply with nakedly authoritarian orders is a true New Speak moment
• A_D_E_P_T 7mo ago
  Oh well, I guess I've got no choice but to sign my business up for Pro plans with Kimi K2.5. lol.
• techblueberry 7mo ago
  So they are such a risk to national security that no contractor that works with the federal government may use them, but they're going to keep using them for six more months? So I guess our national security is significantly at risk for the next six months?
  • wat10000 7mo ago
    Don't make the mistake of thinking their words have meaning. They see a way to punish the company, they take it. Same thing with declaring a national emergency to impose tariffs. There's no supply chain risk, no national emergency, but that doesn't stop them.
  • tgma 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • gip 7mo ago
      Or worse: train the AI to make decisions that align with the view of Anthropic management and not the elected government. Workout telling anyone. I’d agree it is a serious risk.
      • verdverm 7mo ago
        The government is supposed to represent the people and their will, not dictate The current government is deeply unpopular, it's only going to get worse for them.
      • cholantesh 7mo ago
        This rather implies that simply being elected casts a binding on officials that forces them to pursue popular will with their mandate.
    • Analemma_ 7mo ago
      No, you are the one lying trying to get political gotchas here. There is no "trying to exert veto power" absolutely anywhere, Anthropic's terms were laid out in the contract the Pentagon signed, which they want to forcibly amend. If they didn't like the terms, they didn't need to sign the contract.
      • tgma 7mo ago
        What are you suggesting here? US government breaching the contract already signed? I am not aware of that happening here. > Anthropic's terms were laid out in the contract the Pentagon signed, which they want to forcibly amend. It's called negotiation in business. I am sure both sides are clear-eyed on what the consequences were and Anthropic made a calculated bet (probably correctly) that some segment of their employee/customer base would get wet by hearing this news and it more than offsets the lots business, thus is worth it.
        • Analemma_ 7mo ago
          You seem really unaware of the timeline of this issue and what has actually happened, I think you should update your info before posting so confidently wrongly. The contract, including Anthropic's redlines, was signed more than a year ago and has been humming along with no objections from anybody. Hegseth abruptly got a bug up his ass about it last week, and demanded Anthropic sign a revised version under threat of punishment. Anthropic is simply saying "no, we will not be forced into signing a new version, you can either keep going with the original terms we all agreed to, or stop using us". The Pentagon can simply stop using Anthropic if they don't like the terms anymore (which, again, are the terms Pentagon agreed to in the first place). But what the DoW wants is to strong-arm Anthropic, using the DPA, into new terms because they abruptly changed their mind. That's not "negotiation" in any sense, that's Mafia behavior.
  • drumhead 7mo ago
    Dont forget Nvidia technology was condsidered too sensitive to be exported to China....until the Trump administration decided they could export it if they paid a 10% export tax.
    • CSSer 7mo ago
      We've moved beyond telling people not to forget and have entered "expect nothing less" territory
    • kingstnap 7mo ago
      Aren't export taxes against the US constitution?
      • jibal 7mo ago
        Yes ... but what's your point? /s
      • RemainsOfTheDay 7mo ago
        [dead]
      • aryonoco 7mo ago
        Yes but only if you call them export taxes. If it’s payments to continuously verify National Security protections, it’s all good.
    • jmyeet 7mo ago
      The part of this you're missing is that China doesn't want it [1]. Why? Because China will make their own. This has been obvious to me for at least 1-2 years. The US doesn't allow EUV lithography machines from ASML to be exported to China either. I believe the previous export ban on the most advanced chip was a strategic error because it created a captive market of Chinese customers for Chinese chips. China will replicate EUV far quicker than Western governments expect. All it takes is to throw money at a few key ASML engineers and researchers and the commitment of the state to follow through with this project, which they will. I'm absolutely reminded of the atomic bomb. This created quite the debate in military and foreign policy circles about what to do. The prevailing presumption was that the USSR would take 20 years to develop their own bomb if it ever happened. It took 4 years. And then in 1952 the US detonated the first thermonuclear bomb. The USSR followed suit in 1953. [1]: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-still-hasnt-sold-a-single-h200-to-china-nearly-three-months-after-getting-the-green-light-from-the-white-house-u-s-commerce-official-says-department-hasnt-approved-any-sales-during-a-house-hearing https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell...
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
    Isn't this our governments classic negotiation strategy? Go to the extreme, and meet somewhere well on their side of the middle.
    • xpe 7mo ago
      The Trump administration tends to use this playbook. Putting aside my take, I’m trying to objectively make sure I’m grounded on what is likely to happen next, without confusing “what is” with “what is ok”.
  • __del__ 7mo ago
    the administration which declares ad-hoc emergencies is behaving as predicted
    • whatsupdog 7mo ago
      [flagged]
  • JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    Keep in mind that Anthropic “is the only A.I. company currently operating on the Pentagon’s classified systems” [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/defense-department-anthropic-ai-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/defense-depart...
    • stingraycharles 7mo ago
      Because Palentir is using Anthropic.
  • j2kun 7mo ago
    It's a waste of your effort to apply rational argument to the actions of a group that are in it for a shakedown.
    • zmgsabst 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
      • hobs 7mo ago
        I like how you use the phrase social responsibilities to mean doing whatever the DoD wants which includes spying on the American people and operating autonomous drones to kill people. It's like saying they have social responsibilities to enable murder for people who have been shown to be unthinking murderers justifying the most pointless murders because they think it makes "their side" winners.
        • kalkin 7mo ago
          I think Scott Alexander (of all people) got the number of the tech-right Trump defenders on this one: https://xcancel.com/slatestarcodex/status/2027414237484904518?s=20 https://xcancel.com/slatestarcodex/status/202741423748490451...
        • monknomo 7mo ago
          That usage turns the entire meaning of social responsibilities on its heads. It's one of those maddening fash tics where they reverse the plain meaning a statement.
      • garbawarb 7mo ago
        Are they legally required to agree to a new contract? Which law says this?
      • kalkin 7mo ago
        > petite bourgeoisie clutching their pearls > mean girl slights
  • whatsupdog 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • ImPostingOnHN 7mo ago
      > They are a "supply chain risk" if they can willy-nilly break their contract with US govt and enforce arbitrary rules to service. It is the US govt that seeks to break their contract with Anthropic. The contract they signed had the safeguards, so they were mutually agreed upon. These safeguards against fully autonomous killbots and AI spying of US citizens was known before signing. This conflict now is because the US govt regrets what they agreed to in the contract.
      • whatsupdog 7mo ago
        > These safeguards against fully autonomous killbots and AI spying of US citizens was known before signing source?
        • derektank 7mo ago
          https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-hegseth-dario https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-h...
    • roxolotl 7mo ago
      The United States has freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. A company can always direct their money, speech, however they like with regards to the government. Can you be sued for breach of contract? Sure. Is it a supply chain risk absolutely not.
    • jackp96 7mo ago
      Any documentation regarding the claim about breaking their contract? Haven't heard that. Regardless, as someone who works with these models daily (as well as company leadership that loves AI more than they understand it) - Anthropic is absolutely right to say that the military shouldn't be allowed to use it for lethal, autonomous force.
  • roenxi 7mo ago
    > So I guess our national security is significantly at risk for the next six months? That does seem to be what Hegseth is arguing, yes; and that is presumably his justification for doing something drastic here. Although I assume he is lying or wrong. And as a cynic, let me just add that the image of someone going to the political overseers of the US military with arguments about being "effective" or "altruistic" is just hilarious given their history over the last ~40 years.
    • xpe 7mo ago
      There has been a terrifying decline in quality and an increase in corruption in Trump’s second administration. Re: the hilarity part, I’m conflicted: in general, a good sense of humor is useful, but in present circumstances a stoic seriousness seems warranted.
  • tclancy 7mo ago
    It’s the mob. This is nothing more than, “Nice AI ya got here. Be a shame if sometin’ wuz to happen to it.”
    • nemo44x 7mo ago
      Except that it’s sovereign.
      • stahtops 7mo ago
        Sovereign like King George III?
        • redwall_hp 7mo ago
          He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. [...] He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. [...] He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [...] For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: — The Declaration of Independence https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip... People threw tea in Boston Harbor over less than the tariffs.
      • tclancy 7mo ago
  • hirako2000 7mo ago
    Can't just unplug the thing and use something else. Obviously the DoD would not want limited use. Strange they don't make their own given their specific needs.
    • nullocator 7mo ago
      I think this is maybe the most revealing thing about this saga, that seemingly the U.S. government has not been training their own frontier models.
      • hirako2000 7mo ago
        Perhaps getting donations from Altman and "investing" directly in OpenAI is more convenient.
      • sigwinch 7mo ago
        Or, Hegseth revved up an internal govt model and found it just as woke as Anthropic.
    • xpe 7mo ago
      > Obviously the DoD would not want limited use. I agree in this sense: Hegseth's Dept. of War doesn't want any restrictions. I'll try to make the case this is self-defeating, assuming one has genuine, long-term national interests at the front of mind (which I think is lacking or at least confused in Hegseth). Historically, other (wiser) SecDefs would decide more carefully. They are aware when their actions would position DoD outside of reasonable ethical norms, as defined both by their key personnel as well as broader culture. I think they would recognize Hegseth's course of action as having two broadly negative effects: 1. Technology, Employees, Contractors. Jeopardizes DoD's access to the best technology. Undermines efforts in hiring the best people. Demotivates existing employees and contractors. Bullying leads to fearful contractors who perform worse. Fewer good contractors show up. Trumpist corruption further degrades an already lagging, sluggish, inefficient system.* 2. Goodwill & Effectiveness. Damages international goodwill that takes a long time to restore. Goodwill is a good investment; it pays dividends for U.S. military strength. The fallout will distract Hegseth from legitimately important duties and further undermine his credibility. Leading probably to a political mess for Hegseth, undermining his political capital. * Improving DoD procurement is already hard given existing constraints. Adding Trumpist-level corruption makes it unnecessarily worse. There is already an unsavory, poorly tracked, bloated gravy train around the military industrial complex.** ** BUT... Despite all this, the system has more or less worked reasonably well for more than what, 80 years! It has enjoyed bipartisan continuity, kept scientists and mathematicians well funded, and spurred lots of useful industries. It is, in a weird gnarly way, a sort of flux capacitor for U.S. technical dominance.
  • jrmg 7mo ago
    They are the same amount of ‘risk’ to national security that the various ‘emergencies’ the executive branch has used as legal excuses to do otherwise illegal things are emergencies. Congress is negligent in not reigning this kind of thing in. We’re rapidly falling down so many slippery semantic slopes.
    • runlaszlorun 7mo ago
      I'm def adding "slippery semantic slopes" to my vocab.
  • stingraycharles 7mo ago
    From what i understand, Palentir using Claude during the capturing of Maduro is the reason all this started, as Anthropic did not agree their systems were used that way. [1] Obviously Palentir and others need time to migrate off Anthropic’s products. The way i read it is that Anthropic made a serious miscalculation by joining the DoD contracts last year, you can’t have these kind of moral standards and at the same time have Palentir as a customer. The lack of foresight is interesting. 1 https://www.axios.com/2026/02/15/claude-pentagon-anthropic-contract-maduro https://www.axios.com/2026/02/15/claude-pentagon-anthropic-c...
  • pornel 7mo ago
    > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect For this administration the law isn't something that binds them, but something they can use against others.
• BHSPitMonkey 7mo ago
  An earlier post to a news article rather than to a tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47186662
  • phainopepla2 7mo ago
    That news article doesn't mention the designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk (it was published about 20 minutes before Hegseth's tweet)
• eckelhesten 7mo ago
  Hard decision by Anthropic, but at least they can sleep well at night knowing their products doesn’t kill human beings around the world.
  • Gigachad 7mo ago
    That’s the crazy thing. This whole dispute was over Anthropic saying no to fully automated kill bots. They only required there be a human in the loop to press the button.
    • cperciva 7mo ago
      There were two red lines, as I understand it -- first, automated kill bots, and second, mass surveillance.
      • Gigachad 7mo ago
        I guess the problem for Trump is if he orders the army to gun down protesters, there’s a good chance they will refuse to do it. While a bot can just be prompted to go ahead.
        • nazgul17 7mo ago
          This one here is the future I am most scared of.
        • delaminator 7mo ago
          [flagged]
        • RGamma 7mo ago
          Crazy to think how Deus Ex: Human revolution might have gotten the timeline right. Except there's no human augmentation and there won't be citizen fighting four-legged robot police in 2027 Detroit with molotov cocktails: they'll only hear a disconcerting buzz coming at them with ludicrous speed before eternal darkness.
        • 7mo ago
• baby 7mo ago
  This is only the first year of this fascist government, and I believe the first powerful company that is taking a stance? Meta, Apple, etc. have all bent the knee right?
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • bitpush 7mo ago
    Apple not just bent the knee, but also presented a golden plaque to go along with it. Yuck
• lukewrites 7mo ago
  I admire Anthropic for sticking to their principles, even if it affects the bottom line. That’s the kind of company you want to work for.
  • cal_dent 7mo ago
    The team that handles their PR has done an amazing job in the last 9 months
    • noosphr 7mo ago
      [flagged]
      • dimensi0nal 7mo ago
        The admin is clearly running out of steam yet you expect them to be able to get what they want next week after failing this week?
        • noosphr 7mo ago
          Ive been hearing this since 2016. Any day now.
      • NewsaHackO 7mo ago
        It's funny, because even if they walk it back, they still would come out ahead in PR versus if they just rolled over. Because at that point, it would look like a hostage victim reading a statement that they are being treated well by their captors in front of a camera.
      • ctoth 7mo ago
        Do you think that bad things happening is just hilarious in general? Do you like to see good behavior punished? I'm really trying to understand what you get out of making this comment. Also what happens when ... This doesn't happen? You just polluted the epistemic commons a bit more with some cynical bullshit sans consequence? Enough. I think it's time to start calling this garbage out when I see it.
• Glyptodon 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• daxfohl 7mo ago
  Probably used Claude to write the tweet.
  • daxfohl 7mo ago
    "Hey Claude, make this sound less durnk ..."
• agmater 7mo ago
  https://xcancel.com/i/status/2027507717469049070 https://xcancel.com/i/status/2027507717469049070
• leapis 7mo ago
  Decades of speculative science fiction, thought experiments, and discourse led to this. It’s gratifying to see that we’ve garnered enough concern, a major AI lab risking this to reign in the potential of runaway AI disasters. Hopefully we see other labs follow.
• mmooss 7mo ago
  Why are so many adopting this name for what is by law, by the American people, called the Department of Defense? The name change pertains directly to the Anthropic issue, which is the function of the government and department, the power of the American people to govern themselves, and the role of the president relative to the soveriegn American people.
  • bluebarbet 7mo ago
    Well put and it bothers me too. It seems to be another case of Orwellian manipulation, i.e. an expression of power through language, functioning as a litmus test of the speaker's loyalty. Serious publications are not going along with it. More craven or (here) thoughtless ones are falling in line.
    • tick_tock_tick 7mo ago
      I mean the original name switch was much more "Orwellian manipulation" if anything changing it back to war is undoing the bullshit implications that everything it does is defense.
      • bluebarbet 7mo ago
        Surely the purpose of the organization is to defend the country? War seems more like the failure mode. The point here is that it was established by a law of Congress and so has an official name that should be respected until another law changes it.
        • tick_tock_tick 7mo ago
          Maybe defend it's interests certainly not just defend the nation itself.
  • slickytail 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • tick_tock_tick 7mo ago
• NickAndresen 7mo ago
  "They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security." from Dario's statement (https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war)
  • johnbarron 7mo ago
    Is this the same Administration that reversed a previous block, and allowed NVIDIA to sell H200 to China?
    • onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
      Good thing this administration will be a lame duck in 8 months, and they know it.
      • kapluni 7mo ago
        a very optimistic view
        • onlyrealcuzzo 7mo ago
          https://kalshi.com/markets/controlh/house-winner/controlh-2026 https://kalshi.com/markets/controlh/house-winner/controlh-20... https://polymarket.com/event/which-party-will-win-the-house-in-2026 https://polymarket.com/event/which-party-will-win-the-house-...
          • dlev_pika 7mo ago
            So cool we can bet on whether the Trump admin will attempt another coup - what a time to be alive
• JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  This is going to have two unintended consequences. One, it’s going to fuck with the AI fundraising market. That includes for IPO. If Trump can do this to Anthropic, a Dem President will do it to xAI. We have no idea where the contagion stops. Two, Anthropic will win in the long run. In corporate America. Overseas. And with consumers. And, I suspect, with investors.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • bubblewand 7mo ago
    > In corporate America A lot of corporate America contracts for the military in some capacity (it's a giant piggy bank and if you jump through a few hoops you get to siphon money out of it, so of course they do) and assuming this Tweet is accurate (Jesus, what a world) this will also affect them. IDK maybe they have corporate structures that avoid letting this kind of thing mess too badly with the parts of their company that don't have contact with the government, or maybe it'll only apply to specifically the work they do for the government, but otherwise I expect it'll be devastating for Anthropic's B2B effort.
    • JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > lot of corporate America contracts for the military in some capacity And a lot does not, or does so through dedicated subsidiaries so they can work multinationally.
    • rokhayakebe 7mo ago
      What percentage of their revenue comes from the government?
  • skissane 7mo ago
    > If Trump can do this to Anthropic, a Dem President will do it to xAI. We have no idea where the contagion stops. Will the next Democratic President do it to xAI? On what grounds? The Biden admin negotiated a contract with a supplier with terms which are – to the best of my knowledge – rather unprecedented – do Pentagon contracts normally have terms like this, restricting the government's use of the supplied good or service? Do missile or plane contracts with Boeing or Lockheed Martin contain restrictions on what kind of operations that hardware will be used in? I don't think that's the norm. So the next administration tears up a contract made by the previous admin with unusual terms – nothing unexpected about that. The "hardball" of declaring them a "supply chain risk" is escalating this dispute to a never-before-seen level, but the underlying action of cancelling the contract isn't. I honestly suspect the "supply chain risk" aspect will be suspended by the courts, and/or heavily watered down in the implementation; but the act of cancelling the contract in itself seems legally airtight. Next Democratic administration inherits a contract with xAI (and quite possibly OpenAI and/or Google too) – with presumably standard terms. I can totally understand the political desire for vengeance. But what's the actual legal justification for it? Facially, the current administration has a politically neutral justification for what they are doing, even if some suspect there is some deeper political motivation. Will the next Democratic administration have such a facial justification for doing the same to xAI? Plus, Democrats always sell themselves on "we obey norms". They have the structural disadvantage that either they keep their word on that, and can't do the same things back, or they break their word, and risk losing the people who supported them based on that word.
• labrador 7mo ago
  Good. I'd rather not have my favorite AI from a company working on AGI to have murder and spying in it's DNA. In fact, as a patriotic American veteran, I'd be ok with Anthropic moving to Europe. It might be better for Claude and AGI, which are overriding issues for me. Rutger Bregman @rcbregman This is a huge opportunity for Europe. Welcome Anthropic with open arms. Roll out the red carpet. Visa for all employees. Europe already controls the AI hardware bottleneck through ASML. Add the world's leading AI safety lab and you have the foundations of an AI superpower. https://x.com/rcbregman/status/2027335479582925287 https://x.com/rcbregman/status/2027335479582925287
  • deadbabe 7mo ago
    Europe doesn’t give a shit about another American company and their employees trying to dominate their markets and import their workaholic American culture. They will tell Anthropic to go home.
    • labrador 7mo ago
      Europe doesn't care about onshoring the best AI in the world and possibly achieving AGI before everyone? That's a laughable assertion.
    • deliciousturkey 7mo ago
      "Europe" is not a single entity with uniform opinions. As an European, I would much rather have hardworking people and """workaholic""" culture than regress to an underdeveloped culture fueled by laziness.
      • gambiting 7mo ago
        >>underdeveloped culture fueled by laziness Which of the European cultures is "underdeveloped", exactly?
        • deleted 7mo ago
          [deleted]
• kilroy123 7mo ago
  Strange times. I truly feel these are the last days of our Republic. Especially if more aren't willing to take a stand.
  • ksniwmidjd 7mo ago
    [dead]
  • xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
    To counter point, do you think AI companies located on our adversaries turf will take the same stand? I agree its nightmarish to think of AI surveillance. But why is that being lumped in with weaponry? I see these as two separate issues.
    • blooalien 7mo ago
      > "I see these as two separate issues." ... in the same sense as the two sides of a coin are separate sides maybe.
    • orbisvicis 7mo ago
      Do we need a "human in the loop" when targeting autonomous machines?
    • Hamuko 7mo ago
      Anthropic isn't even taking a particular hard stance. Their mass surveillance prohibition only applies to domestic spying, so they're a-OK with spying adversaries. If all of the AI companies all over the world took the same stance, it wouldn't improve the life of Americans one bit. The only other thing that the foreign AI companies could do is say no to automated killing bots, which doesn't even seem like that good of an idea considering that your countrymen will most likely have to interact with these robots that can kill without any oversight.
    • poszlem 7mo ago
      > To counter point, do you think AI companies located on our adversaries turf will take the same stand? I guess if we are going this way, we might already start building camps for the undesirables, since our adversaries will surely do that too.
• i_love_cookies 7mo ago
  [dead]
• bubblewand 7mo ago
  Trump's associated "Truth" ("Truth Social" is the name of his risible fake-Twitter and they call Tweets, "Truths" there) that preceded this: https://www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/36981 https://www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/36981 Don't worry, this is an archive/mirroring site for his account, not the actual TS site. I'd comment on how wackadoo this all is, but, 1) that applies to almost everything these days, and 2) the post's right there, see for yourself.
  • kruffalon 7mo ago
    I really don't follow USA-politics besides the occasional hn-thread, random yt videos, and comments from friends... With that said: what are the chances, in your opinion, that Donald wrote that himself? To me it reads too coherent for there to be any chance he wrote or even dictated that.
    • bubblewand 7mo ago
      I think odds are high a lot of these posts are by staffers. The posting volume is bananas, even granting that he spends a lot more time personally online and watching cable news et c. than any prior president, I don’t think there’s any way they’re all by him. I do think a lot of the more hot-take type posts (often in response to stuff he’s watching on tv) are either actually him, or he’s dictating to an aide. These larger policy-type ones that he treats as quasi-executive-orders, I think are likely drafted by one or more of his cabinet-level folks, or others roughly as high up. That’s just my speculation based on reading the “tea leaves”, though. As for official word, it waffles between “all of it’s him” and “oh not that one though, that racist video repost was a staffer who made a mistake”, so that’s little help in sussing out the truth (but I am rather certain they’re not all directly written and posted by him)
    • IAmGraydon 7mo ago
      He doesn’t write any of his posts. A team of absolute degenerates does. Can you imagine that buffoon typing all of that out?
• drumhead 7mo ago
  Under normal circumstances this would end up in court, but when this administration ignores court orders it doesnt like Anthropic would effectively have no legal recourse.
  • edgyquant 7mo ago
    What court orders has the admin ignored?
    • trevwilson 7mo ago
      Here's one specific case[0] and an article citing 35 others over the course of 6 months[1]: [0]https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/unquestionably-in-violation-judge-says-us-government-didnt-follow-court-order-on-deportations/ https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/unquestio... [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/us/politics/judges-contempt-immigration-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/us/politics/judges-contem...
• easton 7mo ago
  > Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. I’m sure the lawyers just got paged, but does this mean the hyperscalers (AWS, GCP) can’t resell Claude anymore to US companies that aren’t doing business with the DoD? That’s rough.
  • outside1234 7mo ago
    There is no way they can just stop selling Opus 4.6. This will crater the market.
    • janalsncm 7mo ago
      This doesn’t erase Claude, and even if it did Gemini and Codex are there to replace it. Even if a ton of companies have to switch over to an alternative, it won’t be catastrophic to the economy.
      • robertjpayne 7mo ago
        The stock market will be spooked if the US govt can willy nilly high trajectory darling of the AI world like this though. Who's next? OpenAI? Google? What if they refuse to allow the DoD to use AI with zero safeguards and Trump's goons decide they are also a "supply chain risk"?
        • intrasight 7mo ago
          No. The stock market has understood for generations that it's the guys with the guns that protect their gold. The stock market will have a sigh of relief.
          • voganmother42 7mo ago
            Its the agents who control the drones now.
        • 7mo ago
• blibble 7mo ago
  ah yes, fascism
  • this-is-why 7mo ago
    Cancel culture and derangement syndrome. This admin is garbage.
• LightBug1 7mo ago
  Stupid situation, but a badge of honour awarded to Anthropic.
• cpeterso 7mo ago
  Good PR for Anthropic: the DoD already has contracts with OpenAI and xAI, but is still so eager to use Claude that they must threaten Anthropic.
• WesleyJohnson 7mo ago
  What player is going to step in and do what Anthropic wouldn't? Or, worse, will the DoW try to author its own AI to go where private AI won't?
  • outside1234 7mo ago
    Probably Grog, which probably means even worse outcomes
    • stdgy 7mo ago
      At least we'll have hyper sexualized child soldiers to look forward to in our upcoming xAI powered civil war!
    • array_key_first 7mo ago
      I think it's called grok, grog sounds like a caveman name. Actually they both sound like caveman names. I understand the confusion.
  • canadiantim 7mo ago
    Grok is already being brought in
• ChrisArchitect 7mo ago
  Related: Trump orders federal agencies to stop using Anthropic AI tech 'immediately' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185528 Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121
• coffeemug 7mo ago
  I can honestly understand both positions. The U.S. military must be able to use technology as it sees fit; it cannot allow private companies to control the use of military equipment. Anthropic must prevent a future where AIs make autonomous life and death decisions without humans in the loop. Living in that future is completely untenable. What I don’t understand is why the two parties couldn’t reach agreement. Surely autonomous murderous robots is something U.S. government has interest in preventing.
  • wrs 7mo ago
    Because the current government wants unquestioning obedience, not a discussion (assuming they were capable of that level of nuanced thought in the first place). The position of this government is "just do what I say or I will hit you with the first stick that comes to hand".
  • mkozlows 7mo ago
    If the government doesn't want to sign a deal on Anthropic's terms, they can just not sign the deal. Abusing their powers to try to kill Anthropic's ability to do business with other companies is 10000% bullshit.
  • senko 7mo ago
    A vendor doesn't want to do something you need, you find another vendor (there are others). This is just petty.
  • Filligree 7mo ago
    > What I don’t understand is why the two parties couldn’t reach agreement. Surely autonomous murderous robots is something U.S. government has interest in preventing. Consider the government. It’s Hegseth making this decision, and he considers the US military’s adherence to law to be a risk to his plans.
  • thewebguyd 7mo ago
    > it cannot allow private companies to control the use of military equipment. The big difference here is that Claude is not military equipment. It's a public, general purpose model. The terms of use/service were part of the contract with the DoD. The DoD is trying to forcibly alter the deal, and Anthropic is 100% in the clear to say "no, a contract is a contract, suck it up buttercup." We aren't talking about Lockheed here making an F-35 and then telling the DoD "oh, but you can't use our very obvious weapon to kill people." > Surely autonomous murderous robots is something U.S. government has interest in preventing After this fiasco, obviously not. It's quite clear the DoD most definitely wants autonomous murder robots, and also wants mass domestic surveillance.
• outside1234 7mo ago
  AI crash here we come
• canadiantim 7mo ago
  Grok in US gov in 3 2 1…
  • small_model 7mo ago
    Already there 'February 23, 2026: The Pentagon confirmed a new agreement allowing Grok use in classified systems. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced it would go live soon on unclassified and classified networks, alongside other models, as part of feeding military data into AI.' This will mean Grok becomes the defacto US Gov AI provider.
    • ambicapter 7mo ago
      > it would go live soon on unclassified and classified networks, alongside other models, as part of feeding military data into AI. Absolutely insane.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• small_model 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • A_D_E_P_T 7mo ago
    Unfortunately their models suck, though. The difference between the best Grok model and Opus 4.6 is night and day, and not only for coding, but entirely across-the-board.
  • jmward01 7mo ago
    Defense contracting makes you rich and lazy. In the long run it is rare to see companies get sucked into defense contracting and stay relevant/on the cutting edge. We look at fighters and warships and think WOW! But the reality is that they are pretty far behind where they would actually be if there was a civilian purpose to them that mattered.
    • chasd00 7mo ago
      It’s not the defense contracts to Anthropic that hurt. It’s not being able to do business with anyone who does business with the DOD that hurts.
      • small_model 7mo ago
        [flagged]
        • knollimar 7mo ago
          Surveil not protect
        • chasd00 7mo ago
          This is why when ceos get summoned to testify they are always neutered and hat-in-hand humble. It’s trivial for the us gov to destroy any business unless you reach too big to fail status. Anthropic nor OpenAI is too big too fail yet.
  • 7mo ago
• liuliu 7mo ago
  It may not be obvious. But this is actually a good thing when we looking back in a few years. I always feel weird that executive branch can just destroy private enterprise with "Supply-chain Risk" / "Terrorist List" without Due Process.
  • outside1234 7mo ago
    I guess the worry is that we don't get Due Process here and they destroy them to make an example of them.
    • liuliu 7mo ago
      That's a good thing right? In a capitalist society, you cannot just burn $300B without consequences. Not to mention it is not just anyone's money. It is Saudi's.
  • amelius 7mo ago
    It's basically legal hacking. Hacking is using a system in a way it was not intended to be used. Here it is that, but applied to the law. Hegseth and friends are a bunch of black hat legal hackers.
• daxfohl 7mo ago
  I'm convinced the only possible good end game here is if this leads to a showdown where GenAI is just made illegal full stop.
  • GaggiX 7mo ago
    In what fantasy world?
    • goatlover 7mo ago
      A world where I can prompt my local ASI to put a stop to it.
  • eli 7mo ago
    Neither side wants that so seems pretty unlikely
• Someone1234 7mo ago
  Topics like this are where I struggle with HN philosophy. Normally avoiding politics and ideology where possible, created higher quality and more interesting discussions. But how do you even begin to discuss that Tweet or this topic without talking about ideology and to contextualize this with other seemingly unrelated things currently going on in the US? I genuinely don't think I'm conversationally agile enough to both discuss this topic while still able to avoid the political/ideological rabbit-hole.
  • jszymborski 7mo ago
    > Normally avoiding politics and ideology where possible, created higher quality and more interesting discussions. Everything is politics and "ideology"
  • rectang 7mo ago
    You can't discuss this topic without broaching the idea that the government is acting in bad faith — that they don't actually believe that Anthropic is a supply-chain risk and that this action is meant to punish the company. But this is in the HN guidelines regarding comments: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. If a commenter who supports the government makes the same argument that the government is making, the guidelines tell us to assume good faith. My conclusion is that any topic where a commenter might be making a bad faith argument is outside the scope of Hacker News.
    • lemming 7mo ago
      My interpretation of that is that I’m required to assume good faith on behalf of other commenters. So, if someone makes the same argument as the government, I’m supposed to assume good faith there, but nothing requires me to assume good faith on behalf of the government. So I can say that this is obviously a shakedown without breaking the rules.
      • JoshTriplett 7mo ago
        "Assume good faith" does not mean "extend an unlimited amount of good faith to demonstrably bad-faith actors".
• gigatexal 7mo ago
  Pete Kegseth is unhinged. I’m siding with Anthropic here
• general1465 7mo ago
  Ukrainians and Russians are experimenting with FPV drones using AI for target acquisition and homing. Not yet economically viable because it is cheaper to give your FPV fiber spool instead of Nvidia Jetson to bypass jamming. When we have first politician blown to bits by autonomous AI FPV there will be sheer panic of every politician in the world to put the genie back into the bottle. It will be too late at that point. Anthropic is correct with its no killbot rule.
  • IndeanCondor 7mo ago
    Autonomous loitering munitions with 'AI' (image classification CNNs) are already in service and have been used - most demonstrably by the IDF. Even during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azeri loitering munitions were able to suppress Armenian air defenses by hitting them when they rolled out of of concealment. I believe that killchain requires a level of autonomous functionality.
    • general1465 7mo ago
      Azerbaijan was buying a lot of weapons from Israel prior to Nagorno Karabach war, so it is very likely that you have been talking about same weapon system in both cases. However Russians and Ukrainians are using AI recognition in recon drones, but not yet in FPV. There is strong suspicion that long range one way attack drones are using AI during terminal guidance, but I did not see it confirmed by either side.
  • danavar 7mo ago
    If one of our main adversaries is building these weapons already, this is actually an argument for developing this technology ourselves.
    • ok_dad 7mo ago
      NO That would be an argument to build anti-drone technology, not more killbots!
      • 7mo ago
• JakeStone 7mo ago
  It'll get cleared up. TACO
• Keyframe 7mo ago
  Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Come to EU guys, we'll prepare a warm welcome!
  • georgeburdell 7mo ago
    EU won't do 996
    • Keyframe 7mo ago
      We have other places outside of France, come on!
    • purrcat259 7mo ago
      Not doing 996 is a feature not a bug
      • mciancia 7mo ago
        Not when you want to win and compete with someone who does 996
        • Keyframe 7mo ago
          instead of running guys to the ground, you _could_ hire more people and do shifts if it's that important to stay current.
          • orbisvicis 7mo ago
            No, it's 996 for 845 wages.
        • BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
          Anyone who does 996 is being exploited, unless they're the actual boss, in which case they're the ones doing the exploiting if they're pushing 996 on their employees. This is why 996 bosses think AI can replace their employees, because they already see the employees as robots, not humans.
• readitalready 7mo ago
  I’m just laughing at the possibility of it he US military being forced to use Chinese open source AI models because every US model provider refuses to work with them.
  • Hamuko 7mo ago
    >because every US model provider refuses to work with them Zero percent chance of that happening as long as xAI exists.
    • janalsncm 7mo ago
      Would be even funnier if they still chose Qwen over Grok.
    • ks2048 7mo ago
      WW3: Chinese army of intelligent bipeds vs USA waifu memes and based jokes.
  • UltraSane 7mo ago
    Could the NSA use a national security letter to get a copy of a major private LLM?
    • smotched 7mo ago
      a letter??
      • UltraSane 7mo ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
  • tootie 7mo ago
    Pete Hegseth is frantically asking Deepseek to come up with targets in Iran and some plausible objectives he can sell to the public.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• jcgrillo 7mo ago
  I am reminded of bcantrill's legendary quote: > You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end. Except this is like two lawnmowers going at it, which would be a sight to behold indeed.
• HPMOR 7mo ago
  Such a dipshit administration. I hope California secedes from the union to protect our champions.
• tombert 7mo ago
  I had the co-founder of Levels and current head of the US Treasury Sam Corcos reach out to me a few weeks ago for a job. I was initially kind of excited because I had really wanted to work for the Treasury a couple years ago, so I took the phone call with him. He called me and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I realized that he's one of the DOGE/Elon acolytes and he started talking about how he's "fixing" the Treasury and that every engineer is apparently supposed to use Claude for everything. It would have been a considerable pay downgrade which wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker but being managed by DOGE would be, but mostly relevant is that I found it kind of horrifying that we're basically trusting the entire world's bank to be "fixed" with Claude Code. It's one thing when your ad platform or something is broken, but if Claude fucks something up in the Treasury that could literally start a war. We're going to "fix" all the code with a bunch of mediocre code that literally no one on earth actually understands and that realistically no one is auditing [1]. If they're going to "fix" all the Treasury code with stuff generated by Claude, I'm not sure they will have a choice but to stick with it, because very it seems very likely to me that it will be incomprehensible to anything but Claude. [1] Be honest, a lot of AI generated code is not actually being reviewed by humans; I suspect that a lot of the AI code that's being merged is still basically being rubber-stamped.
  • blibble 7mo ago
    don't worry it won't be the world's bank for very long
    • tombert 7mo ago
      There's an awful lot of momentum with the USD being the world currency. Even if it eventually declines I think it might take decades, if the British pound is anything to go by.
      • blibble 7mo ago
        the UK hadn't fucked off every single one of its allies in the space of 12 months
• 827a 7mo ago
  Its one thing to say "we cannot abide by these terms, so let's part ways", and its another entirely to respond this drastically. The Trump administration will look back on this decision as the most consequential in their efforts to win the 2026 midterms and Republican efforts in 2028. This is a $400B+ American company that has significant partial ownership from Amazon, Google, and other private equity sources; they just made serious enemies in SV, many of whom supported Trump in his 2024 election victory.
  • BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
    This is a pimple on the arse of said consequence. It's one tiny thing in a chain of many bigger things. It's magnified because it's right now, but this won't affect midterm results barely a whisker compared to many other daily headlines. There are no serious enemies to this administration in SV and I can't see this changing that. SV has bent the knee exactly like Anthropic didn't. They're not going to stand up because of this, they've proven they don't have those muscles.
  • laweijfmvo 7mo ago
    OTOH it could amplify their base: “Big Tech refusing to work with us on National Security matters!” The base will never hear what/where the red line was drawn, just that Some Company in California (liberal/bad) is being Woke and Political.
    • 827a 7mo ago
      Their base doesn't have any clue who Anthropic is, and never will. Their base is barely paying attention to what they do anymore.
• 0xbadcafebee 7mo ago
  McCarthyism began in 1947, with Truman demanding goverment employees be "screened for loyalty". They wanted to remove anyone who was a member of an "organization" they didn't like. It began with hearings, and then blacklists, and then arrests and prison sentences. It lasted until 1959. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism) This is the new McCarthyism. Do what the administration says, or you will be blacklisted, or worse.
  • alexchantavy 7mo ago
    Feels a bit like Jack Ma and Alibaba
    • poszlem 7mo ago
      Yes, this is more accurate. They are trying to rein in big corporations and make them bend the knee before the government.
  • delaminator 7mo ago
    [flagged]
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• optimalsolver 7mo ago
  In all this commotion I've completely forgotten that Anthropic dropped their safety pledge three days ago.
• dataflow 7mo ago
  Given that Anthropic is clearly risking their entire business just to stand up for what they believe is right, which appears to be what everyone here agrees with, is everyone who is supporting them here planning to also start using Anthropic and switch away from other vendors until they follow suit? Or are folks planning to just use whatever regardless? Edit: I should perhaps clarify I'm more interested in paid users, rather than free. It's harder to tell if free users switching would help them or hurt them... curious if anyone has thoughts on that too.
  • 201p 7mo ago
    I'm switching.
  • maliciouspickle 7mo ago
    i’m currently subscribed to openai for their $20 a month tier chatgpt subscription. i told myself if anthropic does not back down on their current stipulations to the DoD, then i’d cancel and switch over to claude they said there is a line they do not want to cross, and stuck to that stance, at great personal and financial risk to themselves
  • BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
    I've only ever used the free plans, but I'd consider a sub with Anthropic now.
  • aidenn0 7mo ago
    My understanding is that they would have been likely to lose many of their senior researchers if they had backed down here.
• bnycum 7mo ago
  It's nice to see Anthropic sticking to their terms. I just have one question in all this. Why is Anthropic being singled out when it seems all the other big players are down to play with the DoD? Is this just a pissing match, or have the Anthropic models been proven the real winner for them?
  • sowbug 7mo ago
    It's same reason this administration recently tried to indict six Congresspersons for urging military members to resist "illegal orders." They want to demonize anyone who isn't blindly loyal to their side.
• mbgerring 7mo ago
  Can we all take a big step back and just ask why the DoD wants to use a fundamentally unreliable technology to guide deadly weapons?
  • sowbug 7mo ago
    They don't. They want to punish a company for expressing values that introduce friction to the whims of the current administration.
    • mbgerring 7mo ago
      No, stop, I understand the politics here, but I’m asking about the technical fundamentals. LLMs produce output of unknowable and unpredictable accuracy, and as far as we know, this is a mathematically unsolvable problem. This shit should not be within 1000 miles of a weapons system. Why are we even talking about this?
      • dgellow 7mo ago
        Because of the politics.
      • ks2048 7mo ago
        The DoD killing lots of people based on faulty intelligence - never! Joking aside, this administration clearly cares much less others. They don't care if innocent people are killed.
      • wvenable 7mo ago
        > LLMs produce output of unknowable and unpredictable accuracy So do humans. But humans might not follow illegal or immoral orders.
      • sowbug 7mo ago
        You don't understand the politics if you keep asking about the red herring of technical limitations. Anthropic could have said "you can use our technology for anything but faster-than-light travel." The military administration would have said "you're not the boss of me," and the outcome would have been exactly the same. It's a hot-button issue, just like flag burning. Nobody ever really cared about flag burning. By the way, your "No, stop" was rude and unnecessary, and your comment would have been stronger without it.
• strongpigeon 7mo ago
  I can't seem to find what being designated a "Supply-Chain Risk to National Security" implies from a legal standpoint. From what I can find, it doesn't seem to be a formal legal status. Curious if anyone knows more.
  • thewebguyd 7mo ago
    Basically, if you are a federal contractor, the designation means the DoD can force you to certify that Anthropic tech is not used in the fulfillment of your government work. Because it's just a DoD designation, and an executive order and not added to the NDAA, you can still use Claude for non-government (federal) touching work. So using Claude Code to write software for the DoD is now a no go, you'd be in breach of procurement directives now. If they go as far as to convince congress to add Anthropic to the NDAA, that would be a nationwide ban like Huawei making it illegal for any federal contractor to use the tech anywhere in their business. But for now, even fed contractors can still use Claude in their business, just not directly for government work.
    • tacticalturtle 7mo ago
      That doesn’t seem to match up with the original tweet though - it sounds a heck of a lot stronger: > Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic Emphasis mine. And I’m looking at news organizations that presumably have staffs of legal analysts pouring over this stuff, and they also seem to be saying that it can’t be any commercial activity: > The label means that no contractor or supplier that works with the military can do business with Anthropic. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/us/politics/anthropic-military-ai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/us/politics/anthropic-mil...
      • voganmother42 7mo ago
        Wait the liars who lie and don’t care about the law, lied and don’t care about the law?
      • 7mo ago
• shafyy 7mo ago
  Stop calling it the Department of War, it's not the official name of that agency.
  • lioeters 7mo ago
    Department of War is a teenage boy's idea of "manly" and "cool". Same with X. These juvenile idiocrats will be laughed at by children in the future studying history. "Seriously? How dumb were these people in the 21st century."
• msp26 7mo ago
  Batshit situation, respectable position from Dario throughout. But there's some irony in this happening to Anthropic after all the constant hawkish fearmongering about the evil Chinese (and open source AI sentiment too).
• niobe 7mo ago
  The US is such a shit show. Personally I hope this doesn't affect Anthropic's growth and development because I quite enjoy using their products and see them evolve.
• binsquare 7mo ago
  They should wear it like a badge of honor
• riazrizvi 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• AIorNot 7mo ago
  Theo's got a good overview https://youtu.be/MWFyApldYDA?si=yskCcx2hY4Wjkgw8 https://youtu.be/MWFyApldYDA?si=yskCcx2hY4Wjkgw8
• scrubs 7mo ago
  Look folks when he's (trump) that stuck on stupid, he's right and you're wrong. Class it up, people! Class it up!
• xfax 7mo ago
  Fuck it, I am buying a Max Pro subscription just because of this.
• baq 7mo ago
  let's see... > Populist nationalism + “infallible” redemptive leader cult > Scapegoated “enemies”; imprison/murder opposition/minority leaders > Supremacy of military / paramilitarism; glorify violence as redemptive > Obsession with national security / nation under attack TBH could be worse.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• owenthejumper 7mo ago
  This is the most unhinged thing yet, after all the previous unhinged things.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• dang 7mo ago
  Recent and related: Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47173121 - Feb 2026 (1508 comments)
• kapluni 7mo ago
  Kudos to anthropic for standing up for their principles. Let's remember all the silicon valley leaders who embraced fascism without even needing to be pressured. We need more billionaires with backbones.
• dminik 7mo ago
  AI proponents have been very vocal about AI safety being meaningless. But nobody could have expected that the end of the world would have come because Trump puts Grok in charge of the US nuclear arsenal. We truly live in the dumbest timeline.
  • 8note 7mo ago
    well, plenty of reddit comments prefer using dirty bombs over nukes, so id expect a change to how those bombs work.
• bhewes 7mo ago
  So the DOW is using it till the mid term elections?
• BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
  Can we get a list of companies with this designation so I can migrate my subscriptions to them?
• getpokedagain 7mo ago
  Why does everyone associated with this administration sound like a 17 year old who got dumped when they post on twitter.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • ocdtrekkie 7mo ago
    Because this administration is entirely composed of those same 17 year olds, older but not any more mature.
  • whoknowsidont 7mo ago
    Basically a reflection of the average intelligence in the U.S.
    • getpokedagain 7mo ago
      (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
• nomilk 7mo ago
  > Anthropic's two hard lines: > 1. No mass domestic surveillance of Americans > 2. No fully autonomous weapons (kill decisions without a human in the loop) Surveillance takes place with or without Anthropic, so depriving DoW of Anthropic models doesn't accomplish much (although it does annoy Hegseth). The models currently used in kill decisions are probably primitive image recognition (using neural nets). Consider a drone circling an area distinguishing civilians from soldiers (by looking for presence of rifles/rpgs). New AI models can improve identification, thus reducing false positives and increasing the number of actual adversaries targeted. Even though it sounds bad, it could have good outcomes.
  • aldonius 7mo ago
    I thought Anthropic's take on #2 was they don't think the model's good enough yet?
    • nomilk 7mo ago
      But compared to what - if Anthropic's models aren't perfect but still better than existing (old school) models, it's understandable DoW still wants to use them (since they're potentially the best available, despite imperfections). I think Hegseth is saying to Anthropic: "that's our call, not yours".
      • nemomarx 7mo ago
        But surely if Anthropic thinks there's a risk that their models might make bad decisions, and the resulting civilian or etc deaths are blamed on them, it's their right to refuse to sell it for that purpose? That's why they had those restrictions in the contract to begin with. How can they be forced to provide something?
        • nomilk 7mo ago
          I agree they can't be forced to provide something. I just see DoW's reasoning, and I can't fault it. Anthropic are taking a moral position which is admirable, but in this case it could actually make people's lives worse (if we assume more false positives and fewer true positives, which is probably a fair assumption given how much better 'modern' AI is compared to the neural net image recognition of just a few years ago).
• LightBug1 7mo ago
  Hey Hegseth ... ....................../´¯/) ....................,/¯../ .................../..../ ............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ ........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') .........\.................'...../ ..........''...\.......... _.·´ ............\..............( ..............\.............\...
  • Vaslo 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • yoyohello13 7mo ago
      I don't think I'll ever be able to understand how someone can read what Trump posts and think "Yeah, that's a guy I want as my President."
      • Vaslo 7mo ago
        There’s lots of things I can say about what I don’t understand about the cult of leftism, but it will just get flagged because this is HN and devoid of any diversity outside of leftist thought. In the same way you don’t understand me, I’ll never understand you.
        • lovich 7mo ago
          Say it then. Your cult is currently ascendant in power. If you guys are in charge and still are afraid to state your opinions in public then you are soft as baby shit.
    • woggy 7mo ago
      This makes no sense. Do you vote based on principles and policy or do you vote based on the behavior of people who have nothing to do with government?
      • Vaslo 7mo ago
• Avicebron 7mo ago
  How many layers deep does this go? Does Microsoft using Claude to develop their Word products mean the US government has to switch to linux?
  • parliament32 7mo ago
    It means MS has to stop using Claude.
• garbawarb 7mo ago
  This sounds like a message to would-be founders: don't base your company in the US. The strongest markets to do business are the ones with the most freedom from government meddling. In the US, big government is happy to use its power to crush private enterprise that it doesn't like.
  • beepbopboopp 7mo ago
    Name one truly major market that is more business friendly
    • garbawarb 7mo ago
      Singapore? The UK, apparently, since they don't do these things?
    • XorNot 7mo ago
      I think the argument would be that the US is rapidly becoming un-business friendly in the same way that Russia is.
  • aidenn0 7mo ago
    Note that previously this label has been applied (nearly?) exclusively to non-US companies. US companies that don't do business with the DoD are not affected, and non-US companies that do business with the DoD are affected.
• _fat_santa 7mo ago
  The disconnect here for me is, I assume the DoW and Anthropic signed a contract at some point and that contract most likely stipulated that these are the things they can do and these are the things they can't do. I would assume the original terms the DoW is now railing against were in those original contracts that they signed. In that case it looks like the DoW is acting in bad faith here, they signed the original contact and agreed to those terms, then they went back and said no, you need to remove those safeguards to which Anthropic is (rightly so) saying no. Am I missing something here? EDIT: Re-reading Dario's post[1] from this morning I'm not missing anything. Those use cases were never part of the original contacts: > Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War So yeah this seems pretty cut and dry. Dow signed a contract with Anthropic and agreed to those terms. Then they decided to go back and renege on those original terms to which Anthropic said no. Then they promptly threw a temper tantrum on social media and designated them as a supply chain risk as retaliation. My final opinion on this is Dario and Anthropic is in the right and the DoW is acting in bad faith by trying to alter the terms of their original contracts. And this doesn't even take into consideration the moral and ethical implications. [1]: https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war
  • fluidcruft 7mo ago
    I was pondering the same thing and to me the answer is a contractor sold something to the DoD and Anthropic pulled the rug out from under that contractor and the DoD isn't happy about losing that. My speculation is the "business records" domestic surveillance loophole Bush expanded (and that Palantir is build to service). That's usually how the government double-speaks its very real domestic surveillance programs. "It's technically not the government spying on you, it's private companies!" It's also why Hegseth can claim Anthropic is lying. It's not about direct government contracts. It's about contractors and the business records funnel.
    • alephnerd 7mo ago
      Network recon [0] [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47180540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47180540
• djoldman 7mo ago
  I can't wait to read the transcript of the AUSA in front of a federal judge trying to explain threatening to declare a company a supply chain risk if the company doesn't supply things to the government.
• nickysielicki 7mo ago
  This could kill Anthropic. The designation says any contractor, supplier, or partner doing business with the US military can’t conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Well, AWS has JWCC. Microsoft has Azure Government. Google has DoD contracts. If that language is enforced broadly, then Claude gets kicked off Bedrock, Vertex, and potentially Azure… which is where all the enterprise revenue lives. Claude cannot survive on $200/mo individual powerusers. The math just doesn’t math.
  • robertjpayne 7mo ago
    This will likely go to court, again as Dario has stated this is blatant retaliation as no US company has ever been designated a supply chain risk and they continue to operate on classified systems for 6 more months.
    • roxolotl 7mo ago
      Yea strong odds this goes to court, the DoD’s clearly inconsistent logic is ridiculed by a judge, the designation is dropped, and everyone quietly goes about their way with the DoD continuing to use Claude according to the existing terms of the contract.
      • chasd00 7mo ago
        Sure, after a decade of litigation, meanwhile Anthropic goes bankrupt.
  • thewebguyd 7mo ago
    Not entirely true. The designation only applies to projects that touch the federal government, or software developed specifically for the federal government. Contractors can still use Claude internally in their business, so long as it is not used in government work directly. A complete ban would be adding Anthropic to the NDAA, which requires congress. The DoD designation allows the DoD to make contractors certify that Anthropic is not used in the fulfillment of the government work.
• iofusion 7mo ago
  I am directing my Department of Peace to designate Anthropic as a Supply-Chain Risk to Fascism. I have just purchased a chunk of extra usage credit. I encourage my peers to do the same. Let's send a message to those that work forces.
• skeeter2020 7mo ago
  Hegseth's had a busy week: trying to kill Anthropic, attending the State of the Union, fighting Scouting America, and his regularly scheduled efforts to shame fatties & trans kids... Unlike so many in the orange one's inner circle who are just incompetent (say, Kash Patel for one), this dude is both incompentent a very bad, bad person.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• khazhoux 7mo ago
  No surprise here. All government actions are now in the Trump mafia boss style. “You won’t let us use your product unrestricted for military applications? Fuck you, we’re going to stop using it for anything at all across the entire federal government, even if not remotely related to military.”
• TYPE_FASTER 7mo ago
  Wild that not wanting to support fully autonomous weaponry…yet…is the sane take here.
• rushcar 7mo ago
  "Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic." This is authoritarian behavior. You're having trouble negotiating a contract, so instead of just canceling it - you basically ban all of F500 from doing business with that firm.
  • nemo44x 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • gambiting 7mo ago
      What does being sovereign have to do with anything in this case?
      • nemo44x 7mo ago
        The sovereign is the ultimate authority. In the USA “we the people” delegate the sovereign power to our elected officials. They are now exercising that power in the interest of the people (they believe) that grant that power.
        • Rudybega 7mo ago
          You don't actually believe in the core tenets of the USA if you think that the government should have or should exercise unchecked, abusive power.
          • charcircuit 7mo ago
            The power should be checked by the people and the government we have established. It shouldn't have its power checked by private corporations.
            • spankalee 7mo ago
              The government wants to use AI to decide who to kill. Fuck that.
• trelane 7mo ago
  https://x.com/PalmerLuckey/status/2027500334999081294 https://x.com/PalmerLuckey/status/2027500334999081294 It is an interesting point. What's the difference between this use license and others?
  • Smaug123 7mo ago
    It's perfectly reasonable for the US government to end the contract if they no longer like the terms they agreed to (assuming the contract does in fact let them); it's not reasonable to destroy the counterparty to the contract in retaliation. The line "I am altering the deal; pray I don't alter it further" is literally spoken by Darth Vader, the most comic-book of comic-book villains.
  • echoangle 7mo ago
    If the government thinks the terms of Anthropic are unacceptable, they can just stop using them, right? But why would you then retaliate and ban other companies from making business with Anthropic if they want to be a defense contractor? How do these requirements make Anthropic a supply chain risk that makes them unusable for use by other companies?
    • trelane 7mo ago
      > If the government thinks the terms of Anthropic are unacceptable, they can just stop using them, right That is what they are doing. > why would you then [....] ban other companies from making business with Anthropic if they want to be a defense contractor Because, if it shops with Anthropic code, the DoD becomes subject to the restrictions when they receive the contractor's product. Anthropic's limitation is on the use, not (just) on the product or distribution. To stop using them requires making the suppliers still using them as well.
      • tzs 7mo ago
        That's just wrong. At most it requires the DoD to require that contractors do not use it on the work for the DoD.
      • 7mo ago
• daxfohl 7mo ago
  Good. At least now I don't have to worry that my vibe-coded, unreviewed checkout button is accidentally going to hallucinate the command that blows up a kindergarten in Yemen.
• 4b11b4 7mo ago
  Why does this feel like a Facebook post from the person who got broken up with
• nelox 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • HaZeust 7mo ago
    This comment does not hold up to scrutiny. Appealing to the pragmatic and the "game theory" of complying with authoritarian rule that you don't have power over - because the other party that you don't have any power over will benefit from it - is a zero-sum argument.
    • nelox 7mo ago
      Procurement decisions are not authoritarian rule. A government agency deciding that a vendor doesn't meet its operational requirements and setting a timeline to transition off that vendor is one of the most ordinary functions of institutional management. Every organization, public or private, does this. Authoritarian rule involves the coercive suppression of rights or autonomy. Choosing not to renew a contract with a provider who has voluntarily excluded itself from your use case is the opposite of coercion; it's respecting that provider's choice and acting accordingly. The "zero-sum" label is equally off-base. Zero-sum describes a situation where one party's gain is necessarily another's loss, and that is precisely the nature of military capability competition. If an adversary fields unrestricted AI systems and you field restricted ones, the gap is real and the consequences are asymmetric. You don't have to like that reality, but calling it a zero-sum argument as though it's a rhetorical trick misidentifies what's actually a structural condition. The term you seem to be reaching for is something closer to "fear-based reasoning" or "false dilemma," but neither of those applies cleanly here either, because the competitive dynamic being described is well-documented and not hypothetical. If there's a genuine objection to be made, and there may well be, it has to engage with the specifics: whether the restrictions in question actually matter operationally, whether the transition plan is proportionate, whether the policy creates worse risks than it solves. That's where the real debate is. [edit:typos]
• xyzelement 7mo ago
  I am fine with this. If you are a defense contractor, you are a defense contractor, and you follow the military needs that you government believes are necessary - or you stop being a defense contractor. I wouldn't want a bullet manufacturer to hold back on my government based on their own internal sense of ethics (whether I agreed with it or not, it's not their place)
  • xvector 7mo ago
    You're fine with a company being designated a supply chain risk, a designation heretofore used exclusively for foreign adversaries and usually a death knell for most companies, because the government wants to break a negotiated terms of service and contract that they already accepted? The fuck?
• owenthejumper 7mo ago
  I got downvoted for this in the other thread, but this is basically an attempt at bankrupting Anthropic. No US company has ever been designated a supply chain risk, and the foreign companies that are on that list are now doing 0 business in the US. Very large portion of the US economy relies on some contracts with the US government, Anthropic cannot survive this if this holds. I don't think it will hold, in the end this is mafia behavior, but if it does, we are yet again in uncharted waters.
  • phendrenad2 7mo ago
    This was basically what Marc Andreessen said - allegedly he was told by some high-up government officials something like: they were going to pick winners and losers in the AI race, and it would be a bad idea to try to compete in that market. It seems like the election of Trump has only changed the criteria for being a winner.
• amelius 7mo ago
  What's with the Republicans. Do they want a strong or a weak government? I can't tell anymore.
  • BLKNSLVR 7mo ago
    I don't think it's ever been about strong or weak, or at least I don't think that's where the differentiation is. You always want 'strong' government, committed to the things it says it's committed to. It's more been about the size of the government; that it should do a minimal amount of control (and do it well), but leave a lot of things for "the market to decide". Having said all that, I think this issue is just tangential to any big/small government ideology. This is a hissy fit about a defence contractor sticking to their agreement where the DoD want to change the agreement in a way that goes against the contractors Mission Statement and/or the US Constitution itself. The old ideology of the Republicans doesn't mean anything here. This administration is purely about 'give me what I want, now!'. And it's whims change with the breeze. Do not look for consistency here.
• stared 7mo ago
  And the White House, quoting Donald Trump: https://xcancel.com/WhiteHouse/status/2027497719678255148 https://xcancel.com/WhiteHouse/status/2027497719678255148 "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military. The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE..." - President Donald J. Trump
• cmiles8 7mo ago
  As written this would be the end of Anthropic. AWS, Microsoft et al are all suppliers of the DoW and as written they must immediate stop doing business with Anthropic. Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
  • dafelst 7mo ago
    TACO
• seanieb 7mo ago
  > "Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic." Does this mean Azure & AWS will have to stop offering Claude as a model?
  • kgeist 7mo ago
    I wonder, can't Amazon create a new legal entity to split AWS into "AWS-for-DoD" and "AWS-for-everyone-else"? So one can work with Anthropic and the other can't. Not sure how it works in the US.
  • zmmmmm 7mo ago
    You would have to assume it will be immediately challenged and an injunction filed to suspend the order until it makes it to court. AWS Bedrock has deployed Anthropic models under an interesting structure. It is fully hands off - the models are copied into the AWS infrastructure and don't use anything from Anthropic. I think if push came to shove, Anthropic could cut ties with Amazon and AWS could probably still keep serving the models it has with Anthropic forgoing revenue until this is resolved, while asserting they are not "conducting commercial activity" between each other. All speculation of course.
• looneysquash 7mo ago
  Last I heard, it's still legally called the Department of Defense. But anyway, I guess the question is, will any other big AI companies stand with them? It's what needs to happen, but I am not hopeful.
• DavidPiper 7mo ago
  > Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic. Kesha tried to hug Jerry Seinfeld vibes. > Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon. Strange way of saying "this vendor doesn't meet our software requirements". > they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission Err... You approached them? > a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives. It's an orthogonal point, but "Silicon Valley ideology" has made up a significant portion of the USA's GDP for the last however many years. > Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable. Again... You approached them? > I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Like most companies in the world I imagine. They just haven't been approached yet. > to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service. Internally re-framing all the recent "EU moving away from American tech!" articles as "EU builds more patriotic services!" > This decision is final. Nothing says "final" like a Tweet. The most uncontroversial and binding mechanism of all communication.
  • ProllyInfamous 7mo ago
    >>LAWFUL This word effectively means NOTHING, anymore. Doublespeak this motherfucking wrongthink.
• iugtmkbdfil834 7mo ago
  The whole thing is fascinating. In my heart of heart, in principle, I want models to be essentially unrestricted, but I still find it somewhat problematic that government thinks it can say: you will make adjust your product to match our exact expectations even if you don't sign an updated contract with us. Odd stuff. I know they are trotting out War powers, but.. well.. we are not at war ( at least not yet or at least not yet officially declared.. ).
• hacker_88 7mo ago
  i think this is just a show they are putting out .
• siliconc0w 7mo ago
  Google and Amazon both partner with them and sell to the US Government... so does this mean they can't run on Google or AWS infrastructure?
• mrcwinn 7mo ago
  Cue xAI. And here’s the irony: Musk, who claimed only he is virtuous enough to defend us from AI, who insisted he always wanted model labs to be non profit and research focused, will now bring his for profit commercial entity into service to aid in mass domestic censorship and fully autonomous weapons of war. In fact it won’t surprise me further if NVIDIA is strong armed into providing preference to xAI, in the interest of security, or if the government directly funds capital investments. Anthropic saves some dignify and they’re the losers today, but we are the losers tomorrow.
• rawgabbit 7mo ago
  Please tell me when their fifteen minutes is over. It is one bad joke after another.
• runjake 7mo ago
  > Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. I don't think that Secretary Hegseth is qualified to speak on American principles. Cheating on multiple spouses[1], being an active alcoholic, and being accused of multiple sexual assaults and paying off the accusers[3] is fundamentally incompatible with being a Secretary of Defense and a good leader. Also, this violates freedom of speech and will probably get shot down in the courts. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth#Marriages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth#Marriages 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth plus multiple recent media pieces 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth#Abuse_and_sexual_assault_allegations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hegseth#Abuse_and_sexual_...
  • deleted 7mo ago
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  • deleted 7mo ago
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• mrcwinn 7mo ago
  OpenAI came out just last night or today claiming they would hold the same line as Anthropic. Makes me think both sides knew Elon had already won the contract.
• pugworthy 7mo ago
  I imagine I'm not the only one to switch over to giving Claude my money today. I'm sure the "Other" comments for the cancellation were often as blunt as mine. Q: "Is there anything we could do to change your mind?" A: "Yes! Stand up to the current administration."
• lacoolj 7mo ago
  Wonder what other countries are doing in this situation
• _dain_ 7mo ago
  >Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Nevermind Claude, does that mean Anthropic's offices can't use a power company if that same company happens to supply electricity to a US military base? What about the water, garbage disposal, janitorial services? Fedex? Credit card payments? Insurance companies? Law firms? All the normal boring stuff Anthropic needs that any other business needs. This is a corporate death penalty. Or corporate internal exile or something, I don't know of a good analogy.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• jesse_dot_id 7mo ago
  Will be interesting to see how quickly it becomes clear that most of Anthropic's competitors are stealing from them.
• DonHopkins 7mo ago
  Hegseth gets so belligerent when he's hammered.
  • arduanika 7mo ago
    As best I can tell, his hard-drinking era ended many years before he entered the cabinet. But this does feel like a pretty impulsive decision, and there's some ambiguity over whether this statement was approved by the WH, or whether this was just the SECDEF taking it to the next level to look super loyal and badass. This ambiguity gives the WH room to walk it back in the coming weeks, depending on how things evolve.
• m3kw9 7mo ago
  when do they go to court?
• koreanguy 7mo ago
  [dead]
• 0xcb0 7mo ago
  Hey Anthropic, Europe welcome you!
• avaer 7mo ago
  Remember to vote in this year's midterms (Nov 3) if you're eligible. I don't think it's off-topic.
• TutleCpt 7mo ago
  "I am altering the deal. Pray, I do not alter it further." - a scary evil dude.
• cube00 7mo ago
  Sam Altman says OpenAI shares Anthropic's red lines in Pentagon fight [1] So OpenAI will also be marked as a supply chain risk too, right? [1]: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/altman-openai-anthropic-pentagon https://www.axios.com/2026/02/27/altman-openai-anthropic-pen...
  • knuppar 7mo ago
    Really hoping for an official statement from oai. If all large llms are a supply risk, I guess it's a crash
  • nateburke 7mo ago
    Glad there are no hard feelings after those Superbowl ads
• kylecazar 7mo ago
  There is clearly a need to codify into all of these historical acts that they can't be invoked unless there is a declaration of war (or some other appropriate prerequisite). This administration consistently exploits what were designed to be emergency powers because no such requirement exists. Leave no room for interpretation.
  • suddenexample 7mo ago
    The current administration scoffs at laws. Nothing stopping them in that case from declaring war on Nauru and doing all the same. The solution is a sane, informed electorate, which is much more difficult in this age where a few disgustingly rich people have so much influence over news and media.
• LelouBil 7mo ago
  This whole tweet seems very childish.
• kittikitti 7mo ago
  I've had issues with Anthropic since the beginning. I never trusted them. Whoever did, might have some problems.
• fumeux_fume 7mo ago
  Working with the government is typically a huge pain in the ass unless you have a lot of friends on the inside. It's not hard to do the math when you you dealing with a government whose acting incredibly oppositional.
• tomrod 7mo ago
  Sigh. So dumb. More taxpayer funded lawsuits to come.
• loss_flow 7mo ago
  The next question, what person wants to send all their personal questions to whichever AI lab does help the government do domestic surveillance
• threethirtytwo 7mo ago
  Good, anthropic should sell there services to China introduce the “security risk” to China.
• pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
  Wow, and the only restrictions Anthropic asked for are (1) no mass domestic surveillance and (2) require human-in-the-loop for killing [1]. Those seem exceptionally reasonable, and even rather weak, lol :| [1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war
  • IAmGraydon 7mo ago
    Their intention is to turn it against the American people. Hegseth literally wrote a book about eliminating democrats from the US, and this surprises people.
  • blhack 7mo ago
    Did the DoW ask for these things? This whole thing seems like people talking past each other, and that there’s something being left unsaid. Anthropic doesn’t make a product that would assist with kill drones, and they don’t have the right to deny subpoenas.
    • nilkn 7mo ago
      Anthropic specifically called out systems "that take humans out of the loop entirely and automate selecting and engaging targets". I take that to mean they don't want the military using Claude to decide who to kill. As a hyperbolic yet frankly realistic example, they don't want Claude to make a mistake and direct the military to kill innocent children accidentally identified as narco-terrorists. At least, that's the most charitable interpretation of everything going on. I suspect they are also worried that the sitting administration wants to use AI to help them execute a full autocratic takeover of the United States, so they're attempting to kill one of the world's most innovative companies to set an example and pressure other AI labs into letting their technology be used for such purposes.
      • blhack 7mo ago
        Right. Did the DoW ask for that? Or does Anthropic make a product that does that?
• vvpan 7mo ago
  "Department of War" - I suppose one could give them credit for being honest but what bastards...
  • IAmGraydon 7mo ago
    The name is the Department of Defense. Congress did not vote to rename it, so the name hasn’t changed.
• israrkhan 7mo ago
  I already loved Claude models, and this makes me even more eager to use them.
• kelvinjps10 7mo ago
  Since google aws have contracts with the governor, can they make cloud providers stop providing services to anthropic?
• ozten 7mo ago
  Unserious people, in the most serious of positions.
• hugodan 7mo ago
  we are experiencing marketing at its best
• DudeOpotomus 7mo ago
  The funny thing about stupid people, they do stupid things all the time...
• mhh__ 7mo ago
  The 20th century is finally over...
• aichen_dev 7mo ago
  [dead]
• blobbers 7mo ago
  This is getting silly guys. All on the same team. Need to have a c.t.j. meeting.
• blurbleblurble 7mo ago
  Something is clearly unraveling.
• puppycodes 7mo ago
  Help me understand the line Anthropic is drawing in the sand? Don't get me wrong i'm glad they are unwilling to do certain things... but to me it also seems a little ironic that Anthropic literally is partnered with Palantir which already mass surveills the US. Claude was used in the operation in Venezuala. Their line not to cross seems absurdly thin? Or there is something mega scary thats already much worse they were asked to do which we dont know about I guess.
  • xvector 7mo ago
    The whole reason this is happening is because Anthropic looked into how Claude was used in the Maduro op and found it to violate the negotiated terms of service. Their hard lines are: - no usage of AI to commit murder WITHOUT a human in the loop - no usage of AI for domestic mass surveillance
    • puppycodes 7mo ago
      So... this would be fine with them? Claude: "Are you sure you want me to commit murder?" User: "Yes" Or do you mean Human presses button: Claude: "Do you to commit murder? If so press the button." User: "I pressed the button" Claude: "Great! Now lets summarize what we did."
      • xvector 7mo ago
        First one
        • puppycodes 7mo ago
          Seems like an absurd distinction to me... Reminds me of "I was just following orders"...
          • xvector 7mo ago
            I mean the distinction doesn't really matter There are many ways to construct HITL UXes. But typically they'd take the form of the first one I think you're missing the forest for the trees. All Anthropic is saying is that HITL is required before murder, the UX is irrelevant
• jongjong 7mo ago
  We can actually get a glimpse of how AI might wipe out humanity here. Model collapse making models identify everyone as a potential threat who needs to be eliminated. Companies should have a right to refuse such requests on moral grounds though. This stance is vindictive. Just don't use Claude in the military. Extending it to all government agencies is not right. They do great work. Can't deny that.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• kranke155 7mo ago
  This is just an authoritarian state, wanting to use AI to implement something almost certainly anti freedom. We have to be honest about that.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• ElijahLynn 7mo ago
  https://xcancel.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070 https://xcancel.com/secwar/status/2027507717469049070
• vcryan 7mo ago
  The US Government is such a bunch of clowns - it's hard to take their nonsense seriously... well except that their stupid policies kill people...
• TheAlchemist 7mo ago
  Don't worry, they will be seized by the government soon. Sounds crazy right. Not that far from the headline though, that would sound insane a mere 18 months ago.
• hoppoli 7mo ago
  American people: latinamerican here. Maybe it's silly to root for a country in the world hegemony arena. I've usually been partial to the USA over China. Now I'm not rooting for your country anymore. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have China being the foremost power, at least they seem to be less keen on invading or heavily strong-arming latinamerica
  • throw9x9 7mo ago
    and USA created Islamic terrorism that is plaguing the whole world
    • spaghetdefects 7mo ago
      Surely you mean Zionist terrorism.
      • underlipton 7mo ago
        Both tbh. Unless you say that one is Britain's fault.
  • pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
    I empathize, but surely China is not the right choice? Can we please have like, Australia? Or a unified EU?
  • kittikitti 7mo ago
    American here, I would much rather have China being the foremost power too. This saga with Anthropic shows just how clueless these AI companies are. This soap opera has to stop, none of these CEO's, officials from the Trump administration, or the Department of War are good for humanity. I've read the ethics policies that China that they released on generative AI and it's years ahead of anything we have in America. China's AI Safety Governance Framework: https://www.cac.gov.cn/2025-09/15/c_1759653448369123.htm https://www.cac.gov.cn/2025-09/15/c_1759653448369123.htm Most Americans hate AI and it's effectively the ostrich effect where they hope to outright ban it and ignore everything else. Meanwhile, all the evil people are running the show. While Anthropic continues to propagate Sinophobic messaging, DeepSeek and other companies have a much more muted tone.
• nemo44x 7mo ago
  A level up, this is only the beginning of the political headwinds for AI. There will be a lot more, especially if constituencies begin to get displaced. I don’t think “job loss” will really occur, at least not in a dramatic way overnight. But I do believe there will be both aggressive regulation and very aggressive taxation of this technology in the near/mid-term.
• tangotaylor 7mo ago
  Insanely stupid and petty decision. I just left voicemails for all my members of Congress urging them to fight back. I hope the DoW loses this one.
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• woggy 7mo ago
  Maybe time for Anthropic to leave the US. Come to Australia :)
• cannabis_sam 7mo ago
  A drunkard, ex-fox news host, wants mass surveillance and automated killing, what could go wrong? I wish I thought enough Americans had the spine required to stand up to this, and I know for a fact that a lot do... the solution is literally written into your constitution.
• NathanFlurry 7mo ago
  What does this mean for Bun (recently acquired by Anthropic)?
• underlipton 7mo ago
  How 'bout that government meddling in the free market, eh? Every conservative needs to do some very deep, very serious soul-searching. As for me, as a hyper-progressive, I'm drawing up proposals for nationalizing real estate developers in order to force them to build new houses to sell below cost.
• pm90 7mo ago
  Does Anthropic have standing to sue to Government for libel? I don’t think the Government is allowed to arbitrarily designate a company a supply chain risk without good cause.
• johnhamlin 7mo ago
  So the government said, We need y’all to flip on the Minority Report and the Terminator modes or we’ll put you out of business… cool
• csneeky 7mo ago
  Bluster followed by a "we can't do it now but we will... soon". Whoever has the best model can do what they please you'll see. I work with these things daily as an engineer (been doing this shit for 25 years and wow it's like mana from heaven these days). Believe me no one is going to screw with themselves by not using the best one and right now Anthropic has it.
• peteforde 7mo ago
  Confirmed: we're living in hell.
• pamcake 7mo ago
  It seems like some comments here are from merged threads AND front-dated? Makes for very confusing reading when comments from "1 hour ago" are actually on preceding events from earlier, before TFA news (announcement of designation). mods: Especially in sensitive and rapidly developing situations like this, please don't mess with timestamps of comments. It's effectively revisionism.
• ddoottddoott 7mo ago
  based
• kirke 7mo ago
  - Co-authored by Claude
• iainctduncan 7mo ago
  Finally silicon valley is being shown who they sucked up to.
• joshuaheard 7mo ago
  Should military contractors put conditions on the use of their weapons? Here's our tank, but you can't invade Iran with it? We think your invasion of Venezuela is illegal, we're activating the kill switch on your jets. That's a real dangerous proposition.
  • huevosabio 7mo ago
    They can, but the government can always just not buy their stuff. That's not what the government is doing here.
  • stahtops 7mo ago
    If the T&C is agreed to up front, why shouldn't they be able to? If their client or potential client doesn't like the T&C, they can find another vendor.
• hedora 7mo ago
  This is good news all around, especially with OpenAI's statement siding with Anthropic. Anthropic folks: I've been a bit salty on HN about bugs in Claude Code, but I feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about sending you my cash this month.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• gdubs 7mo ago
  I'd at least, you know, pretend we had a top-secret amazing model. By airing all of this publicly, they've basically admitted that Claude is the best there is.
• jeffhollon 7mo ago
  We have a terrible government. I think that’s the answer.
• scottfits 7mo ago
  Besides just being yet another example of the Trump admin abusing power and weaponizing legitimate laws in illegitimate ways to extract concessions, there is another reason this is dumb -- which is that Anthropic just has the best models! As someone who wants America to win, ripping out Claude and putting in xAI is a terrible idea. Definitely setting us back a few months on capabilities
• nicole_express 7mo ago
  In theory, this is why there should be competition in industry, because it removes the capability of a single large actor to be able to control the government's access to things. Oddly, though, it seems like that should solve this problem as well. I'm not sure why the Department of Defense insists on Anthropic's models in particular; one would think one of the other players, at the very least least xAI, would be willing to step in and provide the capability Anthropic doesn't want to provide.
• solfox 7mo ago
  If anything, isn’t this admitting that the government thinks Anthropic has better technology than OpenAI, Grok, etc?
  • layer8 7mo ago
    Maybe, but nowadays I wouldn’t put much money on what the US government thinks.
• eagerpace 7mo ago
  Everyone is getting wrapped around the axel here but this is about the big picture, not the specifics. A private company should not have the ability to dictate how its technology is used by the government. If they can’t agree to that, then don’t sell your technology to the government. Personally, I don’t want to be spied on by the government with it (I don’t think their tech does that) but I also don’t want Anthropic having operational control over a mission.
  • spuz 7mo ago
    That's exactly what is happening... Anthropic are choosing not to sell their technology to the government. I'm not sure what you're suggesting otherwise here.
• linuxhansl 7mo ago
  Hats off to Anthropic for not wavering here. Supply-chain risks means "the potential for adversaries to sabotage, subvert, or disrupt the integrity and delivery of defense systems, including software, hardware, and services, to degrade national security". So now Anthropic is an adversary, because it does not want "fully autonomous weapons" or automated mass surveillance? Sure thing, DoD. Go use Grok or whatever, I'm sure that will go great.
• txrx0000 7mo ago
  This is why you can't gatekeep AI capabilities. It will eventually be taken from you by force. Open-source everything. Papers, code, weights, financial records. Do all of your research in the open. Run a 100% transparent organization so that there's nothing to take from you. Level the playing field for good and bad actors alike, otherwise the bad actors will get their hands on it while everyone else is left behind. Stop comparing AI capabilities to nuclear weapons. A nuke cannot protect against or reverse the damage of another nuke. AI capabilities are not like nukes. Diffuse it as much as possible. Give it to everyone and the good will prevail. Build a world where millions of AGIs run on millions of gaming PCs, aligned with millions of different individuals. It is a necessary condition for humanity's survival.
  • Kim_Bruning 7mo ago
    This is why OpenClaw (and other claw frameworks) ar so interesting. I'm not saying the current implementation is great, mind. But it's a possible safe-er scenario, where the ecosystem is already occupied.
  • raincole 7mo ago
    Nuke is the only thing that can protect you from the potential damage of another nuke.
• zmmmmm 7mo ago
  So I'm very curious, assuming this happens and is later found to be an illegal order - will Anthropic have rights to redress (ie: monetary compensation)? Because that could be absolutely staggering.
• qgin 7mo ago
  So they're essentially admitting they want to use Claude to mass surveil Americans and/or build autonomous weapons with no humans in the loop. Kind of nuts.
• hbarka 7mo ago
  David Sacks
• davidw 7mo ago
  > You sound like an unhinged person if you in plain words describe what’s happening, but the Trump admin demanded Anthropic’s AI be able to kill things for it without human approval and also do mass surveillance. > Anthropic said no, and now the admin is trying to destroy the company in retaliation. From https://bsky.app/profile/bbkogan.bsky.social/post/3mfuuprph5k22 https://bsky.app/profile/bbkogan.bsky.social/post/3mfuuprph5...
• kumarvvr 7mo ago
  This is the inflection point for the beginning of culling of the intellectual class. If not physically, atleast economically and socially. A few arrests and a few in detention centres, will be enough to make them fold and grovel. They are now categorised as "radical left" and woke. The elections will be controlled to "prevent the radical left take over of the greatest country on the planet". edit : The stage is also being set for total media control. My prediction is that the next target will be Google, specifically Youtube. You should start seeing talks about how the radical left is inflitrated youtube.
• mnky9800n 7mo ago
  this all seems like to me as a trumped up (lol) excuse for a government bailout of openai assuming openai steps in and fills anthropics shoes.
• phs318u 7mo ago
  The discussion here underlines the reality that one can never make a “deal” with a powerful state, just as Lando Calrisian famously found out in Empire Strikes Back. Dario is Lando, complaining “We had a deal!” Only to be told, “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
• kledru 7mo ago
  Sounds very much like "Department of War" designating humans a supply-chain risk.
• dwabyick 7mo ago
  The most horrifying thing is this means that they’re trying to spy en masse on all US citizens.
• vr46 7mo ago
  Is that an em-dash in his rant? Fascist
• suhputt 7mo ago
  it's funny that this is being framed as big tech vs us government, when in reality this move is probably strongly influenced by the desire to help openai and other big tech against anthropic
• eduction 7mo ago
  This will likely be deeply unpopular but: Good! The place to set policies on the use of hammers and police enforcement is not at the counter of the hardware store. “You want a hammer but don’t have a contractors license? Are you in a training program? Oh you just want to hang framed art - can I see your lease, does it allow hammering metal into the walls?” We govern these things through laws and a democratic process. Police enforce the laws. I don’t want some overconfident Silicon Valley engineering firm telling me how to use my digital tools, and you shouldn’t either. Whatever you think of this administration, our military should not have to ask contractors permission for their operations. To stop mass surveillance and autonomous lethality, pass laws. Asking unelected tech executives to do this is asking for trouble. They have no business doing it.
  • ben_w 7mo ago
    > I don’t want some overconfident Silicon Valley engineering firm telling me how to use my digital tools, and you shouldn’t either. Last I heard, a US firm can refuse to do business with the US military as a customer in general commercial contexts, there is no blanket legal duty for private companies to sell goods or services to the US military, government agencies do not have a constitutional right to (nor are they a protected category for) the purchase of goods and services from private businesses, and private contracts are voluntary so if either party doesn't like the terms they can decline. There's the somewhat conscription-y Defense Production Act, but the US goverment making use of that in this case is fundamentally incompatible with them simultaneously declaring the exact same organisation a "supply chain risk". Even without the near simultaneous references to both in this case, it seems to me like the US admin has said: WE DEMAND YOU SELL US YOUR STUFF OR WE'LL SHOW YOU BY BANNING OURSELVES FROM BUYING YOUR STUFF!!!!!111 Modulo Trump being more shouty and less coherent, and Hegseth being less shouty. > To stop mass surveillance and autonomous lethality, pass laws. Asking unelected tech executives to do this is asking for trouble. They have no business doing it. The US executive appears to consider the US constitution to not bind on them, only on their enemies. What laws do you think you can pass, when even the constitution is seen that way?
• truthbe 7mo ago
  You would have to believe that an AI model would be 100% correct in its decision to discern an enemy from a civilian. So an intelligent lunatic, or an uninformed lunatic politician
• sensanaty 7mo ago
  I might be being a bit conspiratorial, but is anyone else not buying this whole song and dance, from either side? Anthropic keeps talking about their safeguards or whatever, but seeing their marketing tactics historically it just reads more like trying to posture and get good PR for "fighting the system" or whatever. "Our AI is so advanced and dangerous Trump has to beg us to remove our safeguards, and we valiantly said no! Oh but we were already spying on people and letting them use our AIs in weapons as long as a human was there to tick a checkbox" I just don't buy anything spewing out of the mouths of these sociopathic billionaires, and I trust the current ponzi schemers in the US gov't even less. Especially given how much astroturfing Anthropic loves doing, and the countless comments in this thread saying things like "Way to go Amodei, I'm subbing to your 200 dollar a month plan now forever!!11". One thing I know for sure is that these AI degenerates have made me a lot more paranoid of anything I read online.
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• afavour 7mo ago
  Old enough to remember when the likes of A16Z said they had to support Trump because the Biden admin was being too meddlesome in the tech industry. Sometimes it pays to think even two steps ahead of your most immediate thought…
• fitzroy 7mo ago
  https://xcancel.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538 https://xcancel.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538 Government: We will destroy any company that refuses to create the Torment Nexus
• oj2828 7mo ago
  Once the democrats are in the oval office again can they label palantir a supply chain risk? Is there anything stopping the administations red or blue from shutting down any company that doens't agree 100% with them politically
• pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
  It's fascinating to me that this decision was set for 5 pm ET on a friday, and I think it may be more responsible to set big deadlines like this for a time while the stock market is open. I imagine this will negatively impact confidence in the US economy at large, and stock markets will reflect that. But since the market is closed, we'll have to wait till Monday, with the tension/anticipation of a drop building. If the deadline had been set for say, midday thursday, the market would have responded immediately, but at least you wouldn't have the building anxiety over the weekend. Of course the result wasn't known ahead of time, and I imagine some people will argue that the weekend will give investors time to cool off instead of following their gut reaction. But personally I don't find those arguments very convincing.
  • ajam1507 7mo ago
    It's extremely common to release negative news on Friday after the markets close. It happens nearly every Friday.
    • pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
      Is there a reason that is done, beyond just tradition? I’m genuinely very curious whether there’s a positive, negative, or negligible impact on economic decision making
      • ajam1507 7mo ago
        There are several reasons. Most obviously it's because the markets are closed which keeps immediate panic from affecting stock prices. It's also at the start of the weekend so the idea is that people might be more focused on weekend activities instead of the news. Also, news coverage on the weekend is often reheated stories written during the week meaning that a Friday story is less likely to get picked up.
        • pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
          Right, but these “common sense” reasons aren’t very satisfying, it’s easy to imagine scenarios where they’d be wrong. Eg, this is a pretty significant change of US policy, and I can imagine that the weekend will just allow tension to build. I’m more interested in proper studies
• jmyeet 7mo ago
  Once again we have the US actually doing what the says China might do in the future. It's true that Chinese companies are extensions of the state. But they serve the state. And the state has thus far served the citizenry eg raising 800M people out of extreme poverty. China's HSR network of 32,000 miles of track was built in 20 years for ~$900B. That's less than the annual US military budget. You can look at the relationship between the US government and US companies in one of two ways: 1. US companies serve the government but the government doesn't serve the people. After all, where's our infrastructure, healthcare, housing and education? or 2. The US government serves US corporate interests to enrich the ultra-wealthy. Either way a handful of people are getting incredibly wealthy and all it takes is for a little corruption. Political donations, jobs after government, positions on boards and so on.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• markhahn 7mo ago
  Does anyone believe he's correct? That is, not lying? That is, abusing the office, violating his oath? If we don't impeach for this, we might as well surrender to MAGA.
• poszlem 7mo ago
  tl;dr: All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
• hirvi74 7mo ago
  While I still think the GPT models are superior, I am very inclined to keep my Claude subscription because of this news. Even if Claude provides me with the occasional response out of left-field, I find that easier to live with than a world Anthropic is fighting to avoid.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• recursivecaveat 7mo ago
  Presumably Trump will be returning his $90 million in lawsuit booty now that it's been decided you cannot say no to the government right? Heck he dodged the draft 5 times.
• WarmWash 7mo ago
  I don't know if we should be terrified by Hegseth's response, or relieved that the government doesn't just shrug and lie over privately agreed upon terms.
• neves 7mo ago
  "strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act" How going against the most powerful army on Earth is coward?
• yunnpp 7mo ago
  Anthropic should become an actual supply chain risk and move its HQ to China now, lol.
• neves 7mo ago
  USA is trying to use IA for something so evil that a for profit company is risking to loose a lot of money and even close. Nobody are allowed to know what these evil things are. And people here are debating legalese...
• gepardi 7mo ago
  Sounds like I should upgrade to the $100 subscription in support on Anthropic.
• danavar 7mo ago
  lol
• herbcso 7mo ago
  Pathetic posturing. Also, does this read ECACTLY like an Andor script to anybody else!?
• dewarrn1 7mo ago
  The real question: did he have Claude write this for him?
• 6510 7mo ago
  I like how Grok managed to polish the t.. make the situation sound good. https://x.com/grok/status/2027518650710700068 https://x.com/grok/status/2027518650710700068
• karim79 7mo ago
  I read the tweet and honestly thought I was reading parody. It almost is parody that a former Fox News host is the SECRETARY OF WAR.
• sleight42 7mo ago
  Ironic. This makes me want to quit ChatGPT in favor of Claude because fuck this administration.
• dluan 7mo ago
  it's so funny to me that anthropic was created specifically using the virtue signaling line of defensive safety against bad actors (ie the woo woo bad guy of chinese dictatorship), yet the real danger was always coming from inside the house - your own government being an absolute evil clusterfuck.
• twocommits 7mo ago
  [flagged]
• d--b 7mo ago
  So the DoW is angry because it can’t use the model produced by what they call a woke radical left company? And nobody in the administration is concerned at all that the model itself might be somewhat against their own views? If it was so radically woke, wouldn’t the model, as used in fully autonomous weapons, be potentially harmful to ICE officers that the left considers as a threat to the American people? Wouldn’t the mass surveillance of Americans be biased against the right? These people are so dumb.
• anigbrowl 7mo ago
  I think an important point to consider is that the administration's demands for domestic deployment and automation of homicide are not so much due to a lack of technical ability or personnel resources to achieve sought-for military-strategic outcomes, but an unwillingness for anyone in the administration to take on the responsibility for those decisions. If an employee of the government makes a decision that subsequently turns out to be very very unpopular, that unpopularity is sooner or later going to coalesce and land on them, and the more unpopular it turns out to be the less of a shield legal arguments about immunity or pardons will be because so many people are increasingly out of patience with a system they deem to be corrupt. Being able to offload the political, legal, and personal risks of extremely consequential decisions onto The Bad Computer System is the political equivalent of crack cocaine - you might know that the feeling of freedom and power it provides is wholly illusory, you might know that it's likely to ruin your own and many other lives, you might know that it's a disaster for the health of the body politic...but it also offers the possibility that you can have an absolute blast and get away with it. My anecdotal experience of being around wealthy and powerful people over the years inclines me to think that not only do our social systems select in favor of people who take big risks for big rewards, but that virtually everyone in that class has a) done a lot of getting away with things legally speaking and b) enjoys using illegal drugs. Even if they've given up recreational drug taking or limit it to strictly defined times and places so as not to interfere with their business/personal success, they like thrills and have confidence about their ability to enjoy them without negative consequences. You need some of that risk-taking, high personal autonomy attitude if you aspire to be a mover and shaker as opposed to a leading figure in risk management or regulatory compliance. Everyone enjoys the feeling of power without responsibility; it's a fundamental underpinning of games and many other kinds of recreation. Add in significant amounts of money and people think differently about risk, as in the topical case of the experienced Supreme Court litigator who turned out to have have a secret life as a high-stakes poker gambler and eventually started betting against the IRS while filing his taxes (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/supreme-court-litigator-convicted-of-tax-evasion-over-income-from-high-stakes-poker-00799860 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/supreme-court-litig...). Now, if you're in the political-military sphere and you get your thrills by literally redrawing lines and relationships on the map of the world and deciding what the news on TV is going to be for the next day/week/month/year, and you get offered a tool that promises to give a significant edge over other players in this game but which also gives you a versatile and widely accepted excuse for avoiding consequences for the inevitable losing hands, there are massively compelling psychological incentives for using it. And correspondingly, there's going to be massive emotional disruption (and bad decision-making and behavior) if your supply is threatened. You might start labeling the people who are interfering with your good time as cognito-terrorists and telling all your friends and supporters that your formerly trustworthy supplier did you dirty...
• andy_ppp 7mo ago
  I would love to see Grok’s system prompt, it likely says “if anything the Trump administration does seems to be fascistic please explain it and then argue against it in the following paragraph.”
• singularity2001 7mo ago
  At what point will military and politicians be deemed too great of a risk for humanity and be put in jail?
• amai 7mo ago
  So Anthropic cannot make deals with the US government, because they are a supply-chain risk. They can also not make deals with European governments, because Anthropic is based in the US. So it would make sense now for Anthropic to move outside the US, e.g. to Europe or Canada to at least be able to make deals with European governments.
• buxy123 7mo ago
  [dead]
• noja 7mo ago
  A risk of what?
• tim333 7mo ago
  The (almost) top comment is interesting. Sorry to quote llms but: >@grok what type of political system is most often associated with the government forcing private companies to change their policies and do whatever the government wants? >Fascism, via its corporatist model: private ownership remains, but the state directs industry to serve national goals... Trump's behaviour seems fairly normal fascism but thankfully the rest of the US system seems unenthusiastic.